


Chocolate is Chocolate

by walkingsaladshooter



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Awkward!Kristoff, F/M, Gen, Knowing!Elsa, Sass & Banter, Teasing!Anna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingsaladshooter/pseuds/walkingsaladshooter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kristoff doesn't much care for sweets, but he can be persuaded to make exceptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chocolate is Chocolate

Having dinner with the queen and the princess is always uncomfortable for Kristoff, despite their best efforts. Lunch is all right. Lunch is when he's just returned from a long pre-dawn to nearly-noon day of work and had a warm bath, so he's glad to finally relax. And lunch is taken in the drawing room, which is smaller and less stately, at a nice little table, and there's only two courses, and, well, it's time with Anna. And he increasingly seeks out more and more time with Anna, where-ever he can manage it.

 

 But dinner is in the dining room, full stop, no exceptions. It's at the long, long table in the high-ceilinged room with its chandeliers, and there are three courses plus dessert (and apparently more at official state dinners, but Kristoff never attends those, to his massive relief), and the room is just so big, and the attendants stand along the wall the entire time, and it's hard to have a proper conversation for someone like him in a setting like that.

 Kristoff has lunch with the queen and the princess several times a week. He has dinner with them only when Anna pleads. Today, she pleaded. (He can resist her pleading, of course. He just chooses not to; her delighted smile is always worth it.)

 They're just starting the second course. It's soup, a nice, simple, brothy soup with finely-chopped pieces of root vegetables in it, which he likes. The first course was some ungodly arrangement of mushrooms filled with herbs, which, frankly, tasted like grass, and some kind of sauce practically painted across the plate. Soup is good, and simple, and wholesome. Kristoff is used to a diet of carrots and fish and wild game and turnips and tough greens. The fussy stuff never quite sits right with him.

 Nor do sweets, he remembers as he watches Anna whisper not-so-subtly to one of the attendants to maybe please bring the tray of after-dinner chocolates now even though it's not after dinner yet. Kristoff rolls his eyes and glances up the table at Elsa, who catches his gaze and smiles a small smile, raising her eyebrows a little. She doesn't say a word, of course. In the past few months, she's seemed nervous to deny Anna anything. Which is understandable, all things considered. And she's the queen, so her word goes. But Kristoff would've said no, no chocolate until after the third course, if only to rile Anna's temper. She's adorable when she's riled.

 Anna grins when the tray is set down in the center of the table, or at least the portion of it they occupy. She tilts her head and glances at Elsa, springing kitten eyes on her and saying, "Just one before the duck?"

 Elsa smiles and holds up a single finger. "One. It's Hilde's special duck. We don't want to waste it."

 Anna's grin widens, and she hovers over the tray for a moment before selecting one and popping it into her mouth. Kristoff watches, taking a spoonful of soup, as her eyes flutter shut in a way he recognizes from other, less-chocolatey moments, and she makes a small little happy noise, which is also eeriely similar to other little happy noises she sometimes makes. The girl really loves chocolate.

 Then she opens her eyes and catches him staring at her. His cheeks flush a little, and he's about to glance away when Anna reaches out one slight hand and pushes the tray just a little closer to him. "Can Kristoff have one, too?" she asks Elsa, though she's still looking at Kristoff.

 "Kristoff doesn't want one, too," he says. "You know I don't like them."

 "Oh come on. You just haven't found the right one."

 "Chocolate is chocolate, Anna."

 "Untrue!" She grins, her gaze flickering over the tray. "Okay, so the caramels and nougats and creams, I understand those being too sweet. But there are truffles, and solid pieces, and ones that are really just candied orange peels covered in chocolate." She leans in a little and half-whispers, "Those are  _very_  expensive."

 "I'll bet."

 He turns back to his soup, but Anna picks up a chocolate and holds it out to him. "Here. Try this one."

 "Anna, just let me have my soup."

 "No no no, I promise this one's really good!"

 "You know what else is good? Soup."

 There's a stifled coughing sort of sound from the head of the table. Kristoff glances up at the queen, who is covering her mouth with one hand and looking a bit too much like laughter around the eyes. He sighs and tries, again, to go back to eating his soup.

 He makes it through several bites, feeling Anna staring at him, before a small foot brushes against his shin under the table, and he clears his throat. "Kristoff," Anna says in just enough of a sing-song to make him nervous because they're in the dining room, for god's sake. "Remember how we talked the other day about going sledding?"

 He swallows and lifts his head. "Sledding?"

 "You remember. We had a long conversation about how much you really, really wanted to go sledding with me." And she tips her head to the side, and Kristoff is suddenly perfectly aware of the actual conversation she's referring to as she grins that awful, perfect little grin.

 He glances up at Elsa nervously. She's finishing her soup, quietly, not looking at them. "Right. Sledding. I remember."

 Anna lowers her hand and nudges the tray of chocolates towards him again. "Try one, and we can go sledding tomorrow."

 "T-tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow. As in the day after today."

 Kristoff stares at her, feeling his cheeks flush, knowing perfectly well that everyone in the room can probably tell, between her tone and his blush, that she's not talking about sledding. And part of him is terribly, terribly embarrassed about that. But most of him is focusing on the way she's biting her lower lip and holding out a chocolate to him.

 So he reaches out and takes it, and he eats it. It's less sweet than most of them are, but still too rich for him. He doesn't really like it. But Anna's still grinning that grin, so he grins back, at least until Elsa says, "If you do go sledding, you probably ought to leave the castle grounds. You don't want anyone getting the way of your sled, after all." And then Kristoff chokes a little and doesn't really recover until the duck's brought out and served.


End file.
